1: Growing Up in a Race-Oriented Country
He lived with his mother, the family's housemaid, in the servant’s room at the bottom of the garden. We played happily together. ‘Please would you teach me some Xhosa, and I'll try and teach you some English.’ I used a few of those words when addressing the congregation when welcomed back to Port Elizabeth in 1994.
I had much earlier learned the value of language when attending a parallel medium school in the 50s. It was meant to create a child's understanding of English and Afrikaans language groups.
And by the 1960s, we had recognised the importance of language and learned some Tonga at the School of Oriental and African studies in London in 1968. That was before proceeding to Zambia.
Play together ..... Learn each other's language.
He jumped out of our bedroom window when we returned home in Grahamstown one evening. He'd assembled our clothes on my bed ready for the getaway. For weeks thereafter I couldn't sleep in the bedroom and for months thereafter I wondered whether everyone who looked like him was the thief. After all he was a native.
But beware the label; beware the stereotype, even when we ask for the reasons for the prevalence of crime in different ethnic groups.
South Africa's politics is mainly dominated by the race issue, so with very different views, my parents had agreed not to discuss politics in the home. Disagreement with my father led to real hostility.
'Okay, then!'
That's what I said to my mother when she asked me not to discuss politics at home.
Years later and in the run-up to a South African general election, I asked my father who he would be voting for. I got the surprise of my life. He had changed! I wondered why. But we still didn't discuss politics.
The process of change takes time. We need to exercise patience, and remember that even silence can be a positive influence.
Although banned from talking politics at home, I did discuss my views with others.
'How could a Christian ever vote for the National Party?'
I asked this of Reg Abbott as we drove to band practice one evening. He reminded me of those words as he welcomed us back to Cape Town in the public meeting some 30 years later.
Even though the church might be well advised to stay out of politics, every Christian should form a political opinion and exercise this at the ballot box.